Michael Parenti doesn't like it when Noam says stuff like, "When we invaded Vietnam," etc. He goes, "We!? I didn't do it! The ruling class decided to do it!" And then says he doesn't believe he is responsible for decisions that the ruling class makes, since he's a relative suburodinate in the system.
Chomsky emphasizes that Americans have a relatovely large degree of freedom in the USA and that we *should* take responsibility (the collective "we") and are, in fact, in some ways complicit with the crimes of our leaders. For letting them happen to the degree they happen, to the degree we know about them. He has cited the Nuremberg Principles or something similar as precedent that inactivity because of feelings of helplessness or powerlessness is no excuse to let crimes continue.
On the other hand, some folks have said, "We live in a democracy, so we have no excuse" for not controlling or leaders. But isn't a big part of lefty literature, like Chomsky & Herman, etc., themselves about just the fact that we really don't have a meaningful democracy?
-B.
Tayssir John Gabbour wrote:
> On 11/21/06, ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:
> : w.r.t on-going debate, there are some differences
between
>> responsibility as Chomsky is talking about here and
responsibility as
>> used by me, but I think there are much more
significant similarities.